Commercial travel photography provides imagery for the $1 trillion global tourism industry. It might include photographing destination hotels and resorts, tourist attractions, scenery, outdoor adventures, local events, cultures, and customs. Images are used for advertising, merchandising, and print sales. With such a huge variety of subject matter, travel photographers employ skills across all photographic disciplines: portraiture, landscape, wildlife, architectural, reportage and event photography.
The setting for the photo shoot which resulted in the slideshow was the beautiful Lin Ben Yuan Family Mansion and Garden (林本源園邸) in the Banqiao District, Taipei. It was a residence built by the Lin Ben Yuan Family, and is the country's most complete surviving example of traditional Chinese garden architecture. It can be traced back to 1847 when it was built for storing of rice crop whose location was more convenient for the increasingly wealthy Lin Ben Yuan family. A few years later, it became the family's main residence.
The third image is of Jinru Lee; a student and part-time model in Georgetown (Penang Island, Malaysia). It was made in late August 2018 under the sweltering sun of Penang, and inside the Cheah Kongsi Clan House Temple on Lebuh Armenian. I was in Penang to photograph the various Hokkien operas during the Hungry Ghost festival, and took the opportunity to set a photo shoot in its streets for a forthcoming audio slideshow (aka photo film) titled "The Phantom of the Opera".
The World Travel Guide (WTG) is the flagship digital consumer brand within the Columbus Travel Media portfolio. A comprehensive guide to the world’s best travel destinations, its print heritage stretches back 30 years, with the online portal reaching its 15-year anniversary in 2014. Available in English, German, French and Spanish versions, the WTG provides detailed and accurate travel content designed to inspire global travellers. It covers all aspects, from cities to airports, cruise ports to ski and beach resorts, attractions to events, and it also includes weekly travel news, features and quizzes. Updated every day by a dedicated global editorial team, the portal logs 1 million+ unique users monthly.
As an approved photographer on stock libraries, you can possibly get access to client briefs where you can submit your work direct to the client, meaning they’ll consider you for the project and see your profile. Otherwise there’s usually a marketplace type system for you to upload your images and have them added to collections based on themes, destinations and seasons.
We strive to provide best-in-class service to all our customers. At Destination Auto Group, our experienced Sales Team is eager to share their knowledge and assist you with your journey on finding the perfect vehicle. Our Service and Parts departments along with our qualified technicians are all here to provide you with exceptional service by taking care of all your automotive needs. Read More
As travel has become more accessible, more and more, the genre is opening up to amateurs and professionals alike. Amateur Travel photography is often shared through sites like Flickr, 500px and 1x. Travel photography, unlike other genres like fashion, product, or food photography, is still an underestimated and relatively less monetized genre, though the challenges faced by travel photographers are lot greater than some of the genres where the light and other shooting conditions may be controllable. Traditionally travel photographers earned money through Stock photography, magazine assignments and commercial projects. Nowadays, the stock photography market has collapsed and more and more photographers are using more innovative methods of earning a living such as through blogging, public speaking, commercial projects and teaching.

Stock photography: Shooting for stock photography is a subject for a different article (or five of them) but you can see stock agencies as the middle man between provider (the photographer) and buyer (magazines and websites). In order for news agencies or image bank websites to send you on assignment, you’re required to be a contract photographer. Each organization has its own contract and demands. But some photo agencies will be willing to pay for your independent travel images if they are sellable. Do not expect large amounts. But hey, it’s better than nothing.

As with all types of photography, smart business sense is key. There are many ways to make a living with travel photography, and much of it extends well beyond your photo gear into social media marketing, content development, negotiation and sales. But the first step is to get out into the world and shoot. Start with anyplace you've been dreaming of traveling, and go! Plan ahead, do some research, and don't shoot like a tourist. Can't afford to travel? Search for opportunities in your nearest city to begin building your portfolio.

On the two recent occasions I was in Shanghai, I was thrilled by the abundance of candid street photography opportunities that presented themselves in its old neighborhoods. The narrow lanes crisscrossing these neighborhoods are called lòngtáng (弄堂) or alternatively, lilong (里弄), where whole communities live and sometimes work. The Shanghai lòngtáng can either refer to the lanes that its houses face onto, or to a group of houses connected by them.
Tip from a pro: To work with the big brands, you need to market yourself in a way that will appeal to these types of clients. The kind of architectural or food photography a hotel chain needs is very different from what a tour company that specializes in extreme travel. Don’t try to work in all genres and styles. That’s a good path to becoming an inadequate photographer. Focus only on the genre and style you love and put all of your heart and effort into it.
The most interesting sites for people photography in both Taipei and Hong Kong are in and near temples such as Man Mo and Longshan. The night markets are also a trove for photogenic characters such as the tattooed fellow who stood akimbo guarding his inventory of bric a brac items that lay down in Xichiang market...whether this inventory was honestly procured or otherwise is left to the imagination of viewers.

However I didn't realize that he had done lovely work documenting a rural Chinese opera troupe in Sichuan featured on the International Business Times..thus providing me with valuable inspiration for my own long term book project involving Chinese opera of the Diaspora. My primary focus in this project is on the "rural" or provincial troupes who perform their art during Chinese celebrations and religious observances.

The second image is of Feng "Lisa" Lee, a tea cultivator and business woman from Taipei. It's one of the images of Lisa that was shot in the confines of a photo studio owned by Timothy Huang in mid December 2018. A selection of these studio shots along with other exterior images at the beautiful Lin Ben Yuan Family Mansion (林本源園邸) in Taipei were woven into a photo film titled The Fairy & The Erhu. There is no narration in this audio slideshow....just the lovely sound of the erhu; the traditional Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument.

One of the facets of my photography is the one that involves fashion, travel, tradition, culture, history and last but certainly not least, storytelling. Despite searching for similar work on the internet, I wasn't able to find an equivalent for such a production. Sure, there are many extremely talented photographers who specialize in awesome fashion and glamour imagery, and some who even go to striking artistry with fantastical extremes in makeup and elaborate backgrounds (such as the well known Japanese photographer Haseo, as an example).

As an approved photographer on stock libraries, you can possibly get access to client briefs where you can submit your work direct to the client, meaning they’ll consider you for the project and see your profile. Otherwise there’s usually a marketplace type system for you to upload your images and have them added to collections based on themes, destinations and seasons.

We strive to provide best-in-class service to all our customers. At Destination Auto Group, our experienced Sales Team is eager to share their knowledge and assist you with your journey on finding the perfect vehicle. Our Service and Parts departments along with our qualified technicians are all here to provide you with exceptional service by taking care of all your automotive needs. Read More

Thanks to our hugely supportive sponsors there are some fantastic prizes to be won, but TPOTY is also about more than prizes. This prestigious award offers massive exposure for your work through our media activities, books, photographer profiles and exhibitions. TPOTY-winning photographers have had their work showcased around the world: established photographic careers received a huge boost, new careers were kick-started, and people who never thought they’d see their photographs in print have had a happy surprise! In 2016 and 2017 our touring exhibitions were seen by 250,000 visitors. The 2018 exhibitions were visited by an estimated 1.8 million people!

I introduced myself, telling Chan I had read articles about him. He didn't seem surprised at all, and brought a photo book -carefully wrapped in plastic- to show me more photos and a write up about him, along with other craftsmen in Hong Kong. I had seen Sunset Survivors; a book that tells the stories of Hong Kong’s traditional tradesmen and women through imagery and interviews. It covers a number of curious professions that are quickly falling into obscurity, from fortune telling to face threading and letter writing to bird cage making in the streets of old Hong Kong.

Embarking on such photographic projects make me look for relevant snippets of history, social mores and art (for example, the occupation of Shanghai by the Japanese in the thirties, the Chinoiserie fad of the 18th century, fictional stories similar to that of Madam Butterfly et al). I also learned the aesthetic of the cheongsam (aka qi pao) in its various forms, and the beauty of Chinese calligraphy. I also scoured the internet for Chinese legends, poetry and songs/music that inspired the 2-3 minutes plots of my photo films; as I call these audio slideshows.

Aga Szydlik is a professional culture photographer and a doctoral candidate based in South Africa. She tells us that her journey with photography started with Muay Thai (the famous Thai fight style) which she documented extensively. Based in Thailand, she able to explore South East Asia, onwards to Indonesia and South Africa. She is enthusiastic about alternative processes, analogue photography, Lomography and salt/albumin prints as well as mixed media.

If you’re interested in creating a travel blog to showcase your travel photography The Blogger Course is the best thing you can invest in! It’s a 12 week course sharing all the secrets to making money and finding an audience created by Monica of The Travel Hack. I’ve also contributed a weeks lesson on Advanced Photography. Sign up and you’ll also get access to a secret Facebook Group that’s invaluable for sharing advice and getting feedback.

Similar to geishas, the "sing-song" girls (also known as 'flower girls' were trained from childhood to entertain wealthy male clients through companionship, singing and dancing in special sing-song houses. While the practice of concubinage was officially made illegal, it has recently been popular amongst the wealthy in China as a result of the country's prosperity.

When I was just eight years old I would flip through the pages of National Geographic and imagine being a photographer in Africa. I was captivated by the faces and places that seemed worlds apart from my typical Middle American hometown. Fast forward years later, and I'm living the dream as a travel photographer working throughout Africa and Europe. If you've ever wanted to travel the world with your camera, here's my advice to help you get started and thrive in professional travel photography.
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As an approved photographer on stock libraries, you can possibly get access to client briefs where you can submit your work direct to the client, meaning they’ll consider you for the project and see your profile. Otherwise there’s usually a marketplace type system for you to upload your images and have them added to collections based on themes, destinations and seasons.
After spending the last 6 years fiddling and learning photography, my wife and I are about to move to Cambridge, UK from Melbourne. We are planning to post and write about our European trips in a capacity that is more than just telling our family what we are doing with the goal of allowing our work to eventually pay for our travel. Our first real post will be up soon, looking at our short weekend trip into the Wimmera/Mallee to visit the new Silo Art in the region. My Wife is a much better writer than I am and is currently editing!